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“Identity Politics” Takes a Hit

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No question, we need to build a broad, inclusive movement of people opposed to the manifold threats Trump poses.

The term “identity politics,” like a tether ball, is getting smacked around by players on all sides. Although the term has shifting connotations, it generally refers to a heightened focus on the political interests of marginalized groups like women, racial minorities and LGBT folks.

Bernie Sanders smacked it from the left during a controversial post-election speech in Boston, when he said in response to a Latina’s question, “One of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics.” New York Times columnist David Brooks joined the Washington Post’s George Will in slamming it from the right. These marquee post-mortems see identity politics as the Democrats’ current bête noire. Some even blame it for Hillary Clinton’s loss, in line with a popular narrative that “political correctness” is a major irritant to the white working class.

Many on the Left criticize Clinton for downplaying economics in favor of anti-racism and anti-sexism. They believe she saw a road to power through a new American majority of Blacks, Latinos, women, youth and labor, and tried to appeal to different segments through targeted marketing rather than an overarching theme of systemic change—which could have brought in the white working class. University of Illinois professor and socialist Walter Benn Michaels has been urging a shift in focus from identity to inequality for more than a decade. He told the Chicago Reader in a post-election interview, “In the current practical moment, half the people the [Clinton campaign] accused of being racist are people who should be voting for the Democratic Party.”

Other critics see such arguments as part of a backlash. “When the alt-left says ‘identity politics,’ what they actually mean is civil rights,” writes blogger Marcus H. Johnson on AlterNet. “They want marginalized groups to stop fighting for civil rights because that would upset poor white people who might otherwise vote Democratic.”

For many Black activists, it’s absurd to question the primacy of race in America. Africans were abducted and enslaved; the struggle to address that monumental injustice has propelled Black activism ever since.

Despite that clear origin, a debate about the function of identity politics is also taking place within the Black Left, although the term is shaded with a different nuance. The primary argument is that skin color is used by venal politicians as a kind of Trojan Horse to attract African-American support for policies inimical to their interests.

Much of this discussion was prompted by the Democratic primary. Sanders’ focus on economic inequality rather than anti-racism failed to attract significant Black support—always best mobilized by direct racial appeals. Clinton owes her popularity in the Black community in large part to her husband’s cultural gestures and her expressions of concern for issues important to African Americans.

In Black Agenda Report, an online journal notoriously hostile to this type of identity politics, Solomon Comissiong argues, “Far too many black folks will vote for their worst enemy, if he or she looks like them. That’s why identity politics, which masquerades as a black power strategy, winds up disempowering African Americans every election.”

These are important issues to ponder as the Black community attempts to come to grips with the looming Trump administration. No question, we need to build a broad, inclusive movement of people opposed to the manifold threats Trump poses. Movements have thrived best in American history when they’ve been coupled with the struggle for racial equity—from the abolitionist movement of antebellum America, to the populist movement of the 1890s, to the counterculture movement of the 1960s-70s. Racial justice movements have energized the liberation struggles of other groups oppressed by white supremacist capitalism—including white workers. This is likely because interracial unity subverts the divide-and-conquer tactics deployed to stunt progressive challenges.

One major threat to this unity is the identitarian core of Donald Trump’s support base. The president-elect represents a return to “whiteness” for some. This explains his appeal to the white nationalists of the “alt-right,” who bemoan the lack of white racial esteem. This nation’s slavery-tainted history presents us with an asymmetrical reality: All identity politics are not the same.

Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is the host of "The Salim Muwakkil" show on WVON, Chicago's historic black radio station, and he wrote the text for the book HAROLD: Photographs from the Harold Washington Years.

When I think about my own personal issues, like environment, civil rights, etc., I don't think about if I am/am not engaging in "identity politics". It seems that "identity politics" is just another term coined by the "status quo" (terms like "tree-hugger", "truther". "conspiracy theory") to marginalize the very real concerns/issues that the "status quo" would like to keep marginalized on the fringes.

Sorry, but instead of agreeing with you on that, I'm going to listen to the seventeen intelligence agencies who stated that the Russians interference directly influenced election results. You might be right about the Communist thing, though, Trump's regime actually comes much closer to behaving like actual Communists than the Russians do these days. I'm sure that Trump and his cabinet would like nothing better than to own and control all means of production and distribution. The only real difference is that Russia has an intelligent and aggressive pseudo-dictator named Putin and we have an narcissistic idiot named Trump.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-23 21:36:01

It was lose-lose, either way. That's why millions couldn't bring themselves to support either one. "Lesser-evil" is still evil, and most Americans are sick to death of it.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 12:07:59

Obama was no progressive, but a corporate-centrist. All the Republican whining was political theater.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 12:04:48

"i love the poorly-educated!"- Donald Trump. His fans took it as a compliment.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 12:02:57

"Acted like adults?" i don't think so. Republicans and their hysterical constituency threw an 8-year long tantrum over his every move. Enough of the revisionist history already.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 12:01:12

Firstly, I'm no fan of Trump. But the meme going around that Russia helped him win is a crock of you-know-what. Plus, the Russian Federation is not communist- or did you forget that the Soviet Union went bye-bye 25 years ago?

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 11:57:29

While I am no fan of Obama, he avoided race-based politics like the plague. What did he actually DO to worsen race-relations, aside from being our first black president? Get real.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 11:53:12

In short, identity-politics is a diversion from the economic policies that exacerbate economic inequality.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 11:50:38

Very few of them...it's called "tokenism". Get real.

Posted by joe-god on 2017-01-23 11:47:57

George Soros and his money has helped to create identity politics. Bernie Sanders was right to try to raise the sights away from it. Apart from re-focusing the argument it would help target the human rights debate where it should be focussed - the true misogyny of radical Islam. That's where the real threat will come from in the next few decades.

Posted by Mike Houlding on 2017-01-22 01:53:07

My! Such a trenchant rejoinder. Someone with your staggering intellect (and decision-making ability) must have really worked hard on that one.

How about using it to answer the simple question you've repeatedly failed to address en lieu of your frail non sequitur attacks?

Or do you not support your feeble assertions and merely attack others' as feeble instead?

Posted by Pearl Nathanson on 2017-01-19 08:35:19

That loud popping noise that 'we' all just heard was your ears slamming together in the void between them.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-18 09:05:29

Wrong again. I won't apologize for describing you perfectly, Jack, and no one with more than a room temperature IQ takes you idiots seriously. Especially, the nobodies who were stupid enough to vote for Trump. Those are the facts.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-18 09:00:58

I apologize for posting that you called me "deplorable." My bad.

You actually called me "idiot, chump, dim-witted, functionally illiterate, fat, lying" and some other things.

What a steaming crock of fly-covered shit your comment was. First, Anyone who would vote away the healthcare of more than twenty million people doesn't deserve to have friends. For the record, I've never called anyone a deplorable. Instead, I prefer to accurately and prosaically describe idiots like you. Second, people with poor communication skills always try to pass off the old 'Profanity is the refuge for those who have no basis for their arguments' argument. It's not going to work now, either. Absolutely nobody believes that worn out turd. Sorry, chump. Third, you dim-witted, barely functionally-illiterate Trump fellators and Obama haters acted like spoiled schoolyard bullies suffering from Tourette's Syndrome on steroids when Obama was elected--twice, so don't think that anyone is going to believe your fat, lying ass when you make ridiculously bullshit claims like that last one. You're a real hoot. Too bad nobody takes you seriously.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-18 01:23:32

Wow! You sure know how to win friends and influence people. Tell people they're a "basket of deplorables" and then wonder why they don't vote your way.

Profanity is the refuge for those who have no basis for their arguments.

I do understand your hurt, though. It's the same feeling that we had when Obama got elected--twice. But we acted like adults. You could profit by our example.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-01-17 17:38:11

Obama had a filibusterer-proof Democrat majority in both houses of Congress for half of his first term and in the Senate for all of it...tell us more about how Republican obstructionists thwarted him.

I know, I know. It's all Bush's fault.

All of us readers enduring your maundering catharsis are VERY grateful that at least YOU'RE not a racist.

Posted by Pearl Nathanson on 2017-01-17 16:30:27

Is there a right way to take it?

At least I use my brain to do more than hold my ears apart...and insult people whose intellectual honesty is superior to mine.

I voted for Jill Stein, by the way, in case you ever decide to come up for air out of your mental cesspool.

Posted by Pearl Nathanson on 2017-01-17 16:26:17

Wrong again, Bozo. America is about to get a taste of Donald Trump's ignorance and inefficiency. There won't be a second term because it's extremely doubtful that Trump will get through his first disastrous term. Even his own party is working against him and Trump can't seem to stop tweeting his stupidity. They correctly see Trump as the rudderless man-child of a disaster that he so very obviously is and you dick holsters are so clueless that you'll actually swap your incomes and your futures for a chance to fellate your piss-drunk Fuhrer. Save your poorly-considered vocabulary advice; she's definitely not a lady. America will win next time... maybe even sooner than that.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-17 15:06:47

Happy New Year and I hope you're having a nice day. But keep thinking that way and we'll win next time too. Hint: You lost. Change something next time instead of doubling down on fairy tales or else you'll be out of power for 20 years. Unfortunately (for you) you've empowered those of us who actually work for a living.

And you should not use the f-word when referring to ladies. Do you want to be called misogynistic?

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-01-17 13:46:31

Don't take this the wrong way, Pearl, but you're a fucking idiot.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-17 11:55:44

Obama did nothing of the kind. It was his Republican obstructionists, and their racist, idiot friends who played the race card. America didn't elect Trump, the electoral college did with Russia's help. Now, suddenly, Putin and his dangerous brand of Communism is okay with you guys. Go figure. Trump lost the popular vote because of his Fascism and his obvious dislike of the truth. If you could think critically, you'd have never voted for a moron like Trump.

Posted by Bladewalker56 on 2017-01-17 11:55:43

The black vote in the battle ground states was less then expected. All those in the black community who didn't vote for Hillary in the vital battle ground and rust belt states, in which their votes would of mattered the most, only have themselves to blame for their apathy towards Clinton and their inaction.

Collectivly, now they're stuck with Trump. The same applies to hispanics, and all the other minorities, who choose not to vote for Hillary, due to apathy, or disillusionment to the system. Now they are also stuck with Trump. o.O

Posted by Campus Maximus on 2017-01-16 19:22:12

Indentity politics is not what it seems. In reality it is the individual indentities of the individuals who gain control over particular segments of socio-political policy.It is the focus away from policy of any worth to focus on the individual who claim to champion particular policies. It detracts from the truth and focus on the marketability of those individuals and how they can individual profit by selling their position.The current distortion, is to pull back from the more accurate description of celebrity politics.

Posted by rtb61 on 2017-01-15 22:09:01

THANK YOU for this...the losers in this election have consoled themselves that it was about racists winning when it was really about nationalists winning: America's primacy and sovereignty. Obama treated us as if we are just another nation like Laos, Malaysia, Iceland or whomever...because that's what he believes.

Posted by Pearl Nathanson on 2017-01-14 13:03:05

and how have they "been harmed by an unjust system" ?!? what laws have been against them for over half a century? because I can name a few that have been unfairly designed to help them, that's for sure.

Posted by Pearl Nathanson on 2017-01-14 12:59:39

We thought Obama was going to be the post-racial president.

Instead he turned out to be the "most racial" president. He made race relations worse.

You could summarize the Dems' preoccupation with aggrieved sub-groups as follows:

Obama played the race card.

Hillary played the woman card.

America played the Trump card!

The subject of Salim Muwakkil's article is simply irrelevant.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-01-10 09:02:14

There are several inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the article. First, I hope Salim Muwakkil doesn't subscribe to Clintonite Marcus H. Johnson's disgusting use of the term "alt left" to describe anything other than Johnson's pathetic dishonesty. The left is not attacking 'civil rights' and suggesting that the Clintonites are the guardians of 'civil rights' is absurd.

Second, although older African-American's did favor Clinton - the brand and the myth promoted by the machine - younger African-Americans did not and favored Sanders by larger percentages than young white voters. (See Unlike Their Parents, Black Millennials Aren’t A Lock For Clinton, FiveThirtyEight, published Sep 20, 2016.)

Johnson and other neoliberal Democrats have abandoned a politics that promotes social and economic justice for all US citizens, while deferring to interests Wall Street and corporate interests. While they have more recently brought the LGBT community into the 'fold' and promoted significant reforms, their continued 'appeal' to African-American support is based largely on a legitimate fear of Republicans, without, however, addressing the continued decline of inner city neighborhoods, ravaging unemployment and excessive incarceration.

Promoting class based economic solidarity and the protection and extension of civil rights for oppressed groups is not an either or option, unless your economic policies are determined by the likes of Robert Rubin, Harry Paulsen, Peter G. Peterson, Bill Gates, ad nauseum, This was the message of the Sanders campaign.

Posted by JimBob on 2017-01-09 20:01:39

Because a political program that seeks to achieve justice for those who have been harmed by an unjust system will be especially beneficial to those who have been the most victimized under said unjust system. Do you have some cognitive issues such that simple logical inferences like this must be spelled out explicitly in order for you to comprehend them?

Posted by Eric_Saunders on 2017-01-09 14:18:43

"because blacks and minorities would benefit more".... How is that fair?

Posted by Chris Piccio on 2017-01-09 12:25:19

Bernie Sanders was correct to emphasize economic justice because blacks and minorities would benefit more from real economic justice since they have historically been more the victims of economic injustice. Largely civil rights has been achieved. Economic justice is the next step in civil rights.

Posted by anyone2 on 2017-01-07 16:14:12

I applaud Salim Muwakkil for his insight that Hillary's identity politics may have caused black voters to vote against their own best interests. While Sanders' campaign didn't focus on race issues, Bernie's focus on helping all poor workers would have helped poor blacks at least as much as poor whites. Blacks have always been the last hired and first fired, so nothing helps black people more than full employment.

Identity politics have always been divisive, and as such they're basically a gift to the Republican party, which successfully tries to divide one poor group from another. Republicans get angry white men to blame blacks and Mexicans for their own lack of good jobs. Republicans get angry white men to blame women when they're raped in divorce court. Republicans get angry Christians to get defensive about "secular humanist liberals." Identity politics plays right into Republican hands.

Bernie would have walloped Trump in the general election. The Democrats' super-delegate system was designed to favor the candidate who would best win the general election. Yet recently, Hillary used those super-delegates to achieve exactly the opposite -- a loss at a time the Democrat party could have, and should have won. It ended up being just one more dirty trick Hillary used to steal the primary election from the one candidate who could have healed all the divisions caused by identity politics -- Bernie Sanders.

Posted by Just Me on 2017-01-05 11:30:13

"Identity Politics" also has a sense, in a discussion, of a defensive ad homeniem, that one's status as a (fill in the blank) trumps the other discussant. As a broad movement, it reflects prioritizing one's identity as a (again, fill in the blank). As such, it is inherently non-secular, as one's identity becomes a fundamental organizing principle, like a religion. As a politician who's accepted identity politics as an operative framework, one mediates, pluralistically, among competing identity claims. The narratives in such claims can be exclusivist, which is perhaps why the rubric of identity politics is not held in high esteem. It may be helpful to see it as a product of the commodification process inherent in late capitalism, an atomizing force which impels consumers to think of themselves not as members of a tribe, or a family, or as another broader social unit, but rather as individuals capable, if not required to, make decisions about consumption based on their identity as an individual.

As an aspect of mass culture, then, identity politics can be seen as a logical result of marketing appeals to individual preferences. As a consumer, the individual projects their inviolable consumptive identity back on to the framework of social organization, and demands to be accounted for in the same manner that he or she has been appealed to as an entity capable of making a purchase.

As to whether, "Sanders’ focus on economic inequality rather than anti-racism failed to attract significant Black support," this was the narrative being pushed by the Clinton apologists during the heat of the primary, so seeing it here now seems strangely out of place. At the time, supporters of Sanders attributed the poor showing of their candidate in the deep south, for example, as an indication of the lack of media attention and name recognition. (The absence of Sanders in the media was the result of a prodigious effort by the Clinton campaign to have him sidelined, and resulted in metrics such as those of CNN, which showed more air time of an empty Trump podium, waiting for him to speak, than it did of Sanders actually speaking,) The focus you refer to may never have been achieved because the lens was deliberately occluded or kept out of focus, blurred. Additionally, a study of Sanders' speeches would probably indicate, to most observers, that he focused both on economic inequality and anti-racism, thus failing to meet the "rather than" prioritization you propose.

Posted by incumbent on 2017-01-04 03:20:31

the left shouldn,t use the term... its divisive..

Posted by Dianne McCarthy on 2017-01-03 14:22:18

"This nation’s slavery-tainted history presents us with an asymmetrical reality: All identity politics are not the same. " ///// Your identity politics is racist but my identity politics is better than yours. That is messed up twisted logic right there. Either embrace it with all the good and/or bad or STFU!!